


Our Last Summer Together as Kids: A Banana Fish Fanfiction

by aydentheweeb



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Trigger warning death, Trigger warning violence, trigger warning, trigger warning sadness, trigger warning sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aydentheweeb/pseuds/aydentheweeb
Summary: Told in the form of letters to her children and epilogues about the children themselves, Ember Park details the events of how she met Shorter Wong and Ash Lynx, the events surrounding Banana Fish and what led up to the deaths of her and Shorter.Loosely based on the events of the manga and anime.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Eiji Okumura, shorter wong/original character
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Letter 1 - To My Kids

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: THIS CHAPTER MENTIONS MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS, AND FEATURES ASSAULT AND ATTEMPTED SEXUAL ASSAULT!!!

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

The story I am about to tell you through these letters is true, it really happened. And how would I know that? Because I was there, I lived through it with your father, with Ash Lynx, and with Eiji Okumura. This is a story about our last summer together as kids and what really happened that led up to each of our departures from New York.  
I have given your Aunt Nadia and our friend Sing very specific instructions as to how you two are to receive these letters. One letter will be given to you both each month on the 7th starting on your 13th birthday. I’m not sure just how many letters this will take, or even if I’ll be able to write the last one like I want to.  
There are so many things that both your father and I had wanted to say to both of you in person. And we are so sorry we are unable to do that. I, especially, am sorry for leaving you two alone to your poor Aunt Nadia. Things were not supposed to turn out this way. It’s really unfair for fate to have pulled us apart like this.  
I guess I really should start this all out by telling you about me, your father, and how we met one another. You might really be wondering how a Korean and Chinese got together and decided to not only start a family together but to also unite all the Asia Towns of New York.  
Well it all began quite a while back. I was the only daughter and second child to the greatly famed Park Clan of New York’s Koreatown. I had only one blood sibling, a brother. He was a couple years older than me. When I was really young, I think maybe around 2 or 3, I was told that he loved to play with me and watch over me. I was told that in those days, my brother and I were always causing mischief with all our games of pretend and playing around. Apparently, all the servants thought it was super amusing. But ah, the fun was never meant to last.  
As my brother and I got older we became the targets of assassination attempts from other lesser clans who wished to overthrow the Park Clan and become the ruler of Koreatown. To stop this and to protect both us and the clan, my brother and I were separated. At around 3 or 4 years old, I was sent out to the countryside of New York in the mountains to a family claimed to be distant relatives. They promised to keep the reason why I was sent away a secret and that they would train me in knife fighting, martial arts, and how to effectively overcome any poisons or drugs I may ingest or get injected into my bloodstream.  
By the time I turned 16, my brother was just starting to take control of the Park Clan, and I had just earned a degree in veterinary sciences.  
We were all eagerly awaiting word from my brother (he had just turned 18 at the time) to let me know to return, so I could help him rule over the streets of Koreatown. I would, at last, be by his side once again. I was very excited.  
But that was not to be. My brother and I were never to see each other again. Just a few days after assuming control of the clan and before he could send word to me, he was killed, assassinated. My parents sent a letter urging me to come back as soon as possible because I became the only one able to rule over Koreatown following his death. And so I left for Koreatown.  
The journey to New York was pretty much tame and boring. Nothing exciting happened until I arrived in New York. As had been decided on beforehand, there was no one from the Park Clan, no guards or gang members, to greet me. This was to ensure attention was not drawn to me so that I could safely make my way back to Koreatown without incident.  
For the most part, it worked. However, we had not taken into account the fact that in New York, there exists such disgusting people that are just waiting in the shadows to take advantage of those they believe are weaker than them. Of course, being only 16 at the time and quite small as Asians usually are, we all should have known I would be like a walking target for people like that. I should have been equipped with more than a couple of knives and some smoke bombs.  
As I steadily walked toward Koreatown which was not far from where the bus had dropped me off, one of these disgusting people suddenly lunged at me from the shadows. He was at least twice my size in both height and weight. It was a fight I could not have possibly been able to take on all by myself. Even so, there appeared to be no one around to help me and there I began fighting for my life using all the knife fighting and martial arts techniques I had been taught since I was a toddler.  
It appeared to be working but just as I was going in for a high kick to finish the bastard off, he grabbed my leg and flipped me onto my back. The sharp impact of my back hitting the ground that day knocked the breath right out of me. As I began gasping for air, the world seemed to be spinning uncontrollably and the bastard started climbing on top of me. He began whispering all sorts of awful things into my ear that he wanted to do to me.  
Just as I began to give up and accept my fate of never being able to reunite with my parents, your father appeared with Sing Soo Ling. At first, all I could hear were the voices of two Asian guys and then suddnely the bastard was no longer on top of me. These two Asian kids had pulled him off of me and were beating him to bloody pulp. As I staggered back to my feet and searched for my bags, I caught a glimpse of a purple mohawk and sunglasses. (That was your father.) I also spotted short black hair and a young face. (That was Sing Soo Ling, our good friend.)  
The Asian kid with the purple mohawk and sunglasses looked up and over at me from the bastard he was beating up. It was then that I could really take this kid in. He had an eyebrow piercing on his left brow and was wearing a yellow hoodie, greyish vest, jeans, and high top skater shoes. He quickly got up and walked over to me. The first thing he did was hold out his hand and introduce himself.  
“Hey”, he said, “My name is Shorter Wong and that kid over there is Sing Soo Ling. We live in Chinatown. Are you alright? Haven’t seen you around before, are you Chinese, too?”  
I quickly glanced over to Sing. He looked a lot smaller than Shorter and was wearing a blue letterman jacket with dragon symbols all over it, a white tee, gloves, jeans, and red converse. He had an extremely serious look on his face.  
“Hi” was all he really had to say to me.  
“Well, um, hi”, I said, “My name is Ember of the Park Clan. I’m headed to Koreatown.”  
They both looked at me for a moment then Shorter (again, that’s your father) held his hand out to me again and said, “Why don’t we escort you to the Park Clan? Looks like you might need some help navigating the mean streets of New York.”  
At that moment, I smiled. No one outside my family had ever done that for me before. No one had even been allowed to do that kind of stuff for me. It was almost like a miracle to me, a very precious miracle.  
I think that was the moment when I fell in love with your father. Maybe that was the moment when your father fell for me as well. Who really knows? All I know is that the 3 of us caused quite the scene arriving in Koreatown like that. Just the thought! 2 Chinese kids helping the next heir to the Park Clan get home!  
My parents took it well though. They were kind of amused but mostly very grateful to have me home safely.  
On the way out of my home, Shorter waved and asked me to come check out Chinatown sometime. And I promised I definitely would.  
I guess you can say that’s how things started between your father and I. He showed me just about every inch, nook, cranny, and corner of New York. We did so much together and were completely inseparable. Even Ash had a hard time getting us to do things on our own at times.  
Oh, that’s right! Ash Lynx is the name of your father’s best friend! I’ll have to save that story and who Ash is for the next letter! This one was just to explain how your father and I met!  
I hope you did find this letter to be funny and that you learned something about us. Happy 13th birthday, Yong-You and Jin-Kyong. Your father and I love you very much and we will always be watching over you.

Love,  
Your Mother

Letter One Epilogue

Jin-Kyong put the letter down on the bed. She looked up at her brother, Yong-You. He was silently crying, the tears silently streaming down his face. Jin-Kyong wiped at her own tears that were also falling silently down her face.

“I’m really glad mom took the time to write us about how her and dad met. What about you?” she asked, looking toward her brother.

Yong-You cleared his throat and thought for a moment. He adjusted his grey vest over his yellow hoodie and looked back at his sister before responding, “Yea, I think it’s really nice. Now I know for sure where I get my fashion sense from!”

Jin-Kyong giggled and then looked down at the clothes she was wearing. Cargo pants and band tees. She had a very similar style to her mother.

“I guess even though mom and dad couldn’t be there for us we still ended up looking just like them!” she cheered.

The two smiled and giggled, then looked around their shared bedroom. It was their parents’ bedroom in the Wong household. At their own request, Aunt Nadia had promised not to change anything about the room. The twins felt very at ease in this bedroom because it had their parents written all over it. It was almost like their parents were still around when they were in the bedroom.

Since the death of their parents, the two had teachings from both Chinatown and Koreatown. After all, Jin-Kyong was slated to take over Koreatown someday and Yong-You was slated to take over Chinatown someday. It was the twins’ wish to ensure that nothing happened to the precious bonds their parents had worked so hard to forge.

Yong-You had been taken under Sing’s tutelage and had been learning much about Chinatown over the years. Meanwhile, Jin-Kyong had been taken under her grandfather’s tutelage to learn all about Koreatown. Every once in a while, the twins would switch so that they both learned about each Asia town. The one thing that remained the same for both on their training was training in knife fighting, martial arts, and how to overcome drugs and poisons.

However, today was different. The twins had gotten a much needed break from all their training and learning. And why? Because today had been the day they turned 13 and started receiving those mysterious letters their mother had written for them. Aunt Nadia had done their mother proud, keeping the letters hidden away until the big day had arrived.

And now that the twins had just finished reading the first one, they couldn’t wait for the next one. They wanted to find out all about Ash Lynx, Eiji Okumura and the drug called Banana Fish. (Aunt Nadia and Sing had mentioned these names several times before.) They wanted to know why Ash, Skip, and their parents had to die. They just wanted to know why they couldn’t have their parents with them right now. They just really missed the warmth of their parents.

The twins looked at each other again and sighed. ‘How are we supposed to wait a whole month to find out who Ash Lynx is?’ they thought to themselves. Nonetheless, they knew that they could wait. They had already waited 13 years for the first letter and they knew their mother wanted the letters given to them this way for a reason.

‘We can do it, we can wait’, they thought to themselves, ‘Just one month until we find out about Ash Lynx.’


	2. Letter 2 - Ash Lynx, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: THIS LETTER WILL BE HEAVILY DISCUSSING ASH'S PAST SO PEDOPHILIA, RAPE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, MURDER AND HOMICIDE, SEX TRAFFICKING, AND SUICIDE ARE HEAVY IN HERE. PLEASE READ THIS LETTER/CHAPTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

Oh boy! It’s already been a month since you’ve received and read my first letter! I hope you really did enjoy learning how your father and I met! It really is one of those moments that I’ve always coined as a crowning achievement in my life! I bet you guys are also wondering who Ash Lynx is since I mentioned him a few times in the first letter. Okay, well I am going to tell you a very sad and awful story about a little boy named Aslan “Ash” Callenreese…  
Aslan Callenreese, or Ash Lynx as we all knew him, was actually born a good pace away from here in a sort of rural town near Cape Cod, Massachusetts. His mother was very young at the time and was more or less a drifter. Ash’s father already had a son with another woman who was no longer in the picture. Ash’s father was unable to really care for him and left him to the care of his other son, Ash’s brother, Griff Callenreese. All was well for 6 years…  
When he was 6 years old, Ash was told by Griff that he had been called to serve in the Vietnam War. Ash was very tearful but Griff promised to write him as often as he could and that he would one day come right back home to Ash. Griff left Ash in the care of their father, who agreed to look after Ash until Griff returned from Vietnam. Again, Griff promised to write Ash as much as he could and that he would one day return home to him. That would be the last kind of good memory Ash would ever have of Griff.  
One year later, at the age of 7, Ash came home late from Little League practice one summer’s night. His clothes and hair looked disheveled and he had tears in his eyes. His father knew immediately what had happened. Ash’s father tried to do right by him by reporting to the police that the Little League coach had sexually abused his son. He thought Ash would get justice immediately, that punishment would come down swiftly, but he was so wrong. Because the coach was a very popular man around town and considered a big shot, the police didn’t believe the report Ash’s father tried to file. In fact, they tried to imply that perhaps Ash had been asking for it.   
Feeling horrified and disheartened, Ash’s father returned home. He almost didn’t want to face his son and tell him that the police were refusing to do anything. Instead, he told Ash that the next time to ask the bastard for money in return for the sex.  
Ash, still only known as Aslan at the time, spent the night in his room crying. He spent the night thinking even his own father didn’t care what happened to him. He spent the night just feeling like shit and like a toilet to boot.  
The sexual abuse from the coach lasted another year until Ash was 8 years old. One day, Ash took one of his father’s guns and shot and killed the coach. When police showed up and began investigating, to their horror, they discovered the skeletal remains of multiple children in the basement. The coach. The hotshot. The most popular guy in town. It was all a lie. This disgusting bastard was nothing more than a serial killer, raping and murdering children as he had pleased. The disgusting bastard became known worldwide as “Blue Beard of Cape Cod”.  
Because of the police’s findings Ash was never charged or found guilty of murder. However, the poor 8 year old survivor of sexual abuse became the subject of rumors and small talk in the small town in which he lived. Deeply concerned for Ash and his safety, his father attempted to send him to his sister’s but Ash ran away and his father, unable to track him down or secure a means by which to do so, was unable to find him.  
I’m not really sure what Ash did or where he went during that time from when he ran away to when he was captured by sex traffickers. He was probably out there causing trouble, beating people up and stealing various things to survive. But I mean that’s just my best guess.  
At some point after running away, around 10 or 11 years old I believe, he was captured by sex traffickers and sent to work at Club Cod. Club Cod was a known child sex trafficking establishment run by a nefarious, rich and known pedophile: Dino Golzine. Dino quickly took a liking to Ash, probably because Ash possessed some very unique traits. Blonde hair and green eyes the color and shade of jade.   
Dino began keeping Ash as a pet and soon began bringing him up like family. He taught Ash many things. How to read and write. How to shoot a gun. He gave Ash countless access to books. He taught Ash the differences between all the fine wines. Taught him table manners. He basically and essentially taught Ash everything and molded him into the man we all came to know, respect, and admire.  
However, Dino only ever wanted Ash to himself and was wholly determined to not let anyone else have him. This could not have been made any clearer for Ash when he was 14. He had started to develop some feelings for a girl and she started developing feelings for Ash in return. Dino, who had been watching the two, had the girl killed. And thus Ash’s hopes of romantic freedom were quite literally shot down right in front of his eyes.  
But when he was around 15 or 16 years old, Ash, who had spent all those hopeless and torturous years looking for his older brother, Griff, was finally able to locate him. Griff was at a run-down, shabby veterans hospital. He seemed catatonic and lethargic. What was worse was when Ash called out to his brother, Griff did not respond. He quickly had his brother discharged and took him to his base of operations which he had moved to run-down apartment building. (Apparently, Dino had been okay with Ash moving out of his mansion.) There, he got his friend Skip to help look after Griff.  
Skip was really an awesome kid. He was a little African American boy with a curly, black afro and a great attitude. He would do whatever Ash asked of him without so much as a thought of questioning him. Honestly, I think Skip thought of Ash as an older brother. They were really quite the pair and Ash was really really fond of him. He was even willing to die for Skip.  
By 17, Ash had become a gang leader. And he was able to pull off some truly amazing things. He was able to unite races that would normally be going at each other’s throats 24/7. He had Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Mexicans, Whites, and even Asians either directly under his command or allied with him. He was able to get all of them to come and work together. And he was even able to avoid bloodshed for the most part. Because his deal with Dino for a very long time was that he would do any job given to him just so long as “my boys don’t kill”.  
It always amazes me that Ash was able to successfully hide Griff from Dino all those years. I always thought that Dino would find out sooner or later but he never did, at least not until much later on. I guess you can just use that as testament to how smart Ash truly is. He had an IQ of 200. So it honestly shouldn’t surprise me at all.

Well I really hope you guys feel like you’ve gotten to know Ash, at least a little, through this letter. He truly was an amazing guy going through all of that and still basically managing to come out on top. It really, truly does stun both your father and I! Oh that’s right! I haven’t told you the story about how Ash and your father met yet! Unfortunately, I will need to save that story for the next letter!

Until next month, my dear children!

Love,   
Your Mother

Letter Two Epilogue

Yong-You and Jin-Kyong looked up from their mother’s second letter, tears streaming from their faces. The two thirteen-year-old children had had no idea that the guy everyone spoke about, Ash Lynx, had lived such a sad, lonely, and horrible existence. 

The twins looked up at one another and noticed each other’s expressions for the first time since beginning to read the letter. They both had such sad expressions on their faces. ‘Ash was such a strong person’, they both thought to themselves. The twins just couldn’t believe that Ash Lynx had lived through so much and had never given up.

The two sat down on their bed and sighed. They thought about what they would have done if they had been in Ash’s position. ‘I probably would have offed myself’, Jin-Kyong thought. ‘I probably would have tried to run away or something’, Yong-You thought to himself.

As the twins sat on the bed, Nadia Wong and Sing Soo Ling came up the stairs and knocked on the bedroom door. The two gasped as the sudden knocking had frightened them. They weren’t expecting their aunt and family friend to come upstairs and check on them, especially since they had told them they would be reading another one of their mother’s letters and had told everyone to leave them alone for a while.

“Hey, you two, are you alright in there?” Nadia called out. She gave another knock, this time making it a bit softer. She didn’t want to startle her niece and nephew.

“Hey, you two, dinner will be ready soon”, Sing called through the door. He also knocked again, but his second knock wasn’t as soft as Nadia’s.

Since Ash’s and their father’s deaths when they were still just little babies, Sing had become the new leader of the Chinatown gangs. According to many, his appearance and demeanor hadn’t changed all that much from back when he was just fourteen. He still had a very caring demeanor and looked after all the gangs, giving them the utmost respect. He had grown a bit taller and his features were now more defined, and he still kept his hair relatively short.

Sing knocked on the door again as he said, “C’mon, my wife Akira is making dinner, Shorter Chinese style. I bet you don’t wanna miss a sampling of how your father cooked!”

The twins stared at each other for a brief moment before jumping up off the bed and quickly opening the door. Every time they heard that someone was cooking a meal Shorter Chinese style, they just couldn’t resist. They just had to sample what their dad cooked like. They just had to.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” they screamed at the same time. They had quickly wiped away their tears but Yong-You was still holding onto the letter. When he realized it he quickly went back into the bedroom and put it down on the desk that was under the window. He then joined his sister, aunt, and Sing in going downstairs to the Chang Dai restaurant that their family ran in Chinatown.

Once downstairs, they saw a tall, young Japanese woman with beautifully long black hair and dark eyes setting the table. She seemed to be humming to herself as she got out the plates, napkins, and chopsticks. When she saw the group entering the area, she smiled and beckoned for them to come sit.

‘Wow, she’s so beautiful!’ the twins thought. It was a thought that always occurred when Akira came over for a visit. She had just recently married Sing and she seemed more than happy about being his bride, even though there was quite an age gap between the two.

Nadia was the first to sit down at the table. Following her brother’s death her look and demeanor also hadn’t changed too much. She still kept her black hair short and always wore a poker face that not even Sing could see through. She was also still kind and caring in her own way. She had been faithfully and lovingly caring for her niece and nephew for the past thirteenish years of their lives.

As the group began sitting down to get ready for dinner Sing turned to the twins and asked, “I saw that you read the letter. What did your mother talk about this time?”

The twins hesitated for a moment before answering, “She talked about Ash Lynx and his childhood. Honestly, it was really sad, Sing. Is it really true? Did he really live such a god awful existence?”

Sing nodded signaling that the contents of the letter had been rooted in fact. The twins looked to Nadia who nodded in agreement with Sing.

“So, did your mother tell you guys about how Ash and Shorter met?” Nadia asked. She was trying to change the subject a little to make the twins happier.

“No, not yet. She said she would tell us in the next letter”, Jin-Kyong replied as she began picking up her dinner with her chopsticks.

Shorter Chinese Style. The name kind of made her feel like laughing and crying at the same time. It wasn’t anything special really. Just fried rice and some meat. There didn’t really seem to be much of a difference from Shorter style and the Chang Dai style, except that Shorter style was a little more on the burnt side.

As she ate, she smiled. Even though the food really tasted burnt, she liked it. Because it reminded her of her dad. She looked over to her brother, Yong-You, who was also smiling, probably for the same reason as her.

“Huh? What are you two smiling so much for?” Sing and Nadia asked at the same time, curious looks on their faces.

“Oh no real reason. Just thinking about how this reminds us of dad. We can’t wait to find out how he and Ash met next month!” the twins answered, smiling proudly.

Nadia, Sing, and even Akira all shook their heads as they smiled and thought to themselves, ‘They have no idea just how alike they are to their parents.’


	3. Letter 3 - Ash Lynx, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING:  
> 1) THIS CHAPTER ALLUDES TO THE ANGEL EYES SIDE STORY IN VOLUME 19 BUT IS NOT HOW IT GOES AT ALL, REMEMBER THIS IS AN AU FANFIC  
> 2) LITTLE TOKYO/LITTLE SAIGON: THIS CHAPTER ALSO HEAVILY MENTIONS THE YAKUZA AND POSSIBLE GANGS IN LITTLE SAIGON, BUT PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS ALL FICTIONAL AND ANYTHING THAT MIGHT BE REAL IS JUST COINCIDENTAL  
> 3) THE TERM JAPS IS USED IN THIS CHAPTER, THIS TERM IS USED TO DESCRIBE THE JAPANESE IN THE MANGA WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE 1980S, WE ARE USING THE MANGA MORE FOR REFERENCE HERE, I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE IF ANYONE IS OFFENDED BY THE USE OF THE WORD JAP/JAPS (I, THE AUTHOR, AM ASIAN SO I GET IT WHEN YOU GUYS GET OFFENDED)
> 
> IF ANY OF THESE THINGS OFFEND YOU OR MAKE YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE, I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE. AGAIN, I AM USING THE MANGA MORE FOR REFERENCE AND AS THE TIMELINE TO FOLLOW. SO EVERYTHING IS TAKING PLACE IN THE 1980S HERE MEANING THAT CERTAIN TERMS AND SLURS ARE USED MORE COMPLACENTLY THAN THEY ARE USED TODAY.

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

Kids, I’m so sorry that my second letter had to be so depressing. I’m so sorry. I hope it didn’t upset you kids too much or worse, give you nightmares. It was never my intention to upset you, you just needed to know Ash’s history. It is extremely vital to know all of it as it all plays so much into what transpired to cause not only his and Skip’s deaths, but your father’s and mine as well. Again, please forgive me for leaving you two so alone in this world. Please don’t think I “abandoned” you because I honestly never had any intention do this to you.  
Oh look at me rambling on and on again. I’ve been rambling so much that I almost forgot I needed to tell you the story of how Ash and your father met. This story is much lighter than most of the ones you’re going to get, as you may have already noticed…

Now as you two already know from my first letter I was 16 when I came back to live in Koreatown, and at the time your father was 14. Yes, you guys are reading that correctly! I’m the older one by 2 whole years! For one year, until your father was 15 and I 17, we spent a lot of time together, just the two of us. We quickly came up with a plan to unify the various Asiatown gangs in New York. You see not only is there Chinatown and Koreatown but there also exists Little Tokyo, which is for the Japs. We quickly came to the realization that uniting with Little Tokyo would be an extremely difficult task.  
You see, Japs have their own underground gang system called the Yakuza. They are basically Japan’s equivalence to an organized crime syndicate and they are very powerful. Just like any other syndicate they follow their own rules and systems, and especially one rule of not letting outsiders in. They can be very secretive and hostile. They really are quite something. And for those reasons we knew it was going to be a whole load of trouble to try and get the Little Tokyo Yakuza to side with Koreatown’s and Chinatown’s gangs.  
So your father, smart as he is, decided we should take a year or so to come up with a good plan to get the Yakuza to settle with our gangs. We spent about a year brainstorming, scheming, and just generally trying to come up with a plan. Your Aunt Nadia and Sing also were included in these discussions, and they had some pretty good suggestions, as well as some pretty crazy ones to boot. (I still remember when Sing suggested we simply find out who the boss of the Little Tokyo Yakuza was and just send him a letter of proposal or something like that! Hahaha!)  
We were finally able to come up with a plan that we were all at least willing to try out: Your father and I had actually developed a few contacts in Little Tokyo that had some relatively close connections to the Yakuza there. We all knew that there was a pretty big event coming up at one of the Little Tokyo clubs that was run by the Yakuza. The plan was for your father to attend the event with one of our contacts as a guest of that contact. Once inside the club, the contact was going to try and hook your father up with a family member that was part of the Yakuza. It seemed like a relatively safe bet at the time, and there didn’t seem to be much danger involved. Plus our contact promised to help keep your father safe and ensured me that nothing would happen so long as your father remained by his side throughout the entirety of the event.  
So the evening the event came and your father dressed as the contact had advised. In a neat and tidy black suit with a tie. Of course, your father refused to remove his sunglasses as it was pretty much his signature style. The contact told him wearing sunglasses was fine as it gave one a bit of a status symbol, thus it would work to our advantage. And off the two went.  
It wasn’t until later, when your father phoned us from jail, that we found out that the event had turned into a shoot-out disaster. A rival gang or syndicate from Little Saigon (Vietnam town) had come to crash the event. They apparently came in, guns and knives blazing. Several bystanders outside the club became frightened and called the police. In all the confusion, your father was arrested and thrown in a juvenile detention center with a bunch of Yakuza and Little Saigon gang members.

In that juvenile detention center was where your father met Ash Lynx.

While we were all busy trying to gather up your father’s bail money, one day the guards came by your father’s cell, opened it, and threw a young teen boy in. He had blonde hair, green eyes the color and shade of jade (your father would later state that his eyes reminded him of angel eyes, like the ones from the Christmas card Aunt Nadia had sent him once), and a look that could truly kill. Your father asked the guards who the kid was but they scoffed and walked away, telling him to figure it out on his own.  
Your father said he tried to be polite and introduce himself saying hi my name is Shorter Wong, how about you. But told me that the kid just looked at him, scoffed, and said he wanted the top bunk. I think the attitude really got to your father because I guess he sort of yelled at him. But the kid wanted nothing to do with your father, stating that he didn’t want to mingle with a Chinese gang member. (Thinking back on it now, I’m pretty sure your father recounted that day with a salted taste in his mouth.)

Your father apparently spent the next few days still attempting to be nice to this blonde haired, bad attitude kid (your father’s words, not mine!) He attempted to explain how the juvenile detention center worked and even attempted to joke around with him. But it was really difficult to get along with this kid, because he seemed very unapproachable and easy to piss off.

But this all changed one day. A couple weeks into the kid’s stay which was about a month into your father’s stay (trust me we were all taking on odd jobs to get his bail money in order because it was pretty damn high!) a huge fight broke out in the center. It was between the Hispanics and Whites (not really sure how it got started) and because the kid was blonde and White he ended up getting dragged in. Your father was quick to jump in, pull him out, and help him out. Believe me, the kid was kind of pissed that your father helped him but realized shortly after that he would have needed it eventually anyway.  
After the guards were able to break up the fight and put the ones who started it in solitary, everyone was ordered back to their cells for the remainder of the day. According to your father, none of the kids argued with that order cause they were all tired as hell.  
Once back inside their cell, the kid finally decided to introduce himself. He said thanks to your father for helping him and that his name was Ash Lynx. (Your father has always thought the word lynx described Ash really well.) For some reason, Ash decided to open up a little and told your father he was there cause he killed a few people and your father told Ash what had happened in Little Tokyo. That caused Ash to laugh because he thought that our plan was stupid all along, no matter that we had some contacts within the Yakuza.  
Your father then asked if he and Ash could join forces while they were in the center. He said he would watch Ash’s back while Ash watched his, and Ash agreed so long as your father didn’t hold him back. And of course, your father didn’t hold Ash back at all.  
After we were able to bail your father out and Dino finally agreed to bail Ash out, the two decided to join forces. When your father brought it up to me, I agreed. After all, we had discovered that Ash was a gang leader and had been able to unite a lot of different people together. It only seemed natural that we would want someone of that caliber to be on our side. And that is how Ash’s gangs, Chinatown, and Koreatown become allied to one another.

Later on, when your father told both your Aunt Nadia and I the story, we both noticed how highly he talked of Ash. To us, it almost sounded like he might be in love with Ash. I mean, at the time my feelings for your father were still kind of just a crush and we were dating in the sense that we went out on dates, so it really wasn’t something serious at the time. But still, the thought that he might be in love with this kid that he just met made me feel sad and jealous at the same time.  
Your father may have sensed the tension in the room because he tried to tell the story kind of fast. But in the end, I really can’t argue with the fact that he was truly in love with Ash Lynx, even though he chose to be with me instead. Don’t get me wrong, kids! I’m not saying he didn’t love me or you guys, because he obviously loved us all so much! But I just can’t deny that he had secretly chosen to love Ash Lynx as well!

Ah, I wish I had more time and room in this letter to explain more about Dino and to tell you about the Banana Fish drug you’ve been hearing so much about but I’ll have to save those topics for the next letter!

Love,  
Your Mother

Letter Three Epilogue

Yong-You and Jin-Kyong looked up from the third letter their mother had left for them. They looked out the window at the hot summer day that lay before them in downtown New York. Aunt Nadia had brought up the air conditioner from storage and installed it in the window, so they could only stare out through the top half. They noticed that the sun seemed hotter and brighter than usual.

As the twins lay down on their bed, they couldn’t help but think about their parents and how much they missed them. They just couldn’t help but think about how unfair things had turned out for their family. First they had lost their father to this drug called Banana Fish and because the Lee Clan had betrayed them. Then they lost their mother because she had become so grief and rage stricken by their father’s death, that she had declared war on the Lee Clan; she died in a final confrontation with the Lee Clan when the twins were only just under a year old.

As the twins lamented on their family’s bad luck (or bad karma was it?), their Aunt Nadia walked up the stairs and stood at the open doorframe. The twins had apparently forgotten to close their door when they had gone upstairs to read the letter.

“Hey, guys. It’s me. Did you finish reading the letter yet?” Nadia asked as she knocked on the doorframe gently.

The twins looked up from the bed and replied at the same time, “Oh, hi, Aunt Nadia. Yes, we’ve finished reading this month’s letter.”

Jin-Kyong looked over her aunt’s shoulder at a young Asian man standing behind her. He was wearing a neat black suit and tie. When he noticed Jin-Kyong looking at him, he smiled and nodded. This caused her to sigh heavily and a look of annoyance appeared on her face.

The man smiled and said, “Come, Jin-Kyong. You have some lessons to go over today. Your grandfather is waiting for you back at the Park Estate in Koreatown.”

“Really? Do I really have to go?” Jin-Kyong sighed as she complained.

“Oh go on, sis. I’m sure Sing has things to teach me today, too. I should probably go out and find him”, Yong-You said, trying to coax his sister into doing her lessons.

Jin-Kyong pouted for a few moments but then jumped off the bed and laid the letter on the desk. She then slowly trudged out of the room, her expression still fixed to pouting. The man attempted to put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but she quickly slapped it away as she walked past him and down the stairs.

As she walked down the stairs, Jin-Kyong muttered angrily to herself but since it was mostly her own musings no one but her would’ve understood them.

Just as she was getting caught up in her mutterings, her brother rushed down the stairs to join her. He put his hand around her shoulder and squeezed her into a bit of a side hug. He knew Jin-Kyong didn’t like having to be separated from him because of what had happened to their parents, but he also knew that the Park Clan and Koreatown would ensure her safety; likewise the Wong family and Chinatown would always ensure his safety. In knowing that, he felt perfectly safe and fine with Jin-Kyong going back to their grandparents.

“It’ll be okay. Banana Fish doesn’t exist anymore. Dino is dead. Aunt Nadia and Sing ensured both of those things so nothing bad is going to happen to us when we’re separated. I’ll come over for dinner tonight, okay?” he whispered to her, hugging her one more time.

Jin-Kyong smiled and nodded. She hugged her brother back. He always knew just what to say to bring her so much comfort. This was the exact reason why she hated being away from him.

“You promise to come over for dinner?” she whispered back. He nodded signaling that he would keep his promise.

Jin-Kyong smiled, let go of her brother, and started skipping down the stairs. The man from Koreatown began jogging down the stairs to try and keep up with her.

But just as he was about to pass him, Yong-You grabbed the man by the arm and whispered to him quietly, “Please make sure she stays safe.” The man nodded in response and Yong-You let go of his arm, watching as he quickly caught up to his sister.

‘Geez, grandma and grandpa sure do run a lax security around here’, he thought to himself. Though it did make sense. Ever since Dino Golzine had died and Banana Fish had been destroyed, it seemed things had gone back to normal. Except that Ash, Skip and their dad were all gone.

Yong-You still wondered why this Banana Fish drug and this Dino Golzine person was so important, and why those things had marked his father for death.

‘Well, I guess mom might explain that to us in August when we read the next letter’, he thought to himself, as he finished going down the stairs and exited the Chang Dai restaurant to look for Sing.


	4. Letter 4 - Dino Golzine and Banana Fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: THIS CHAPTER DOES TALK ABOUT PEDOPHILIA AND CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING. 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: THIS CHAPTER HAS SOME VERY TECHNICAL TERMS IN IT, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PAUSE YOUR READING AND LOOK UP DEFINITIONS AS NEEDED.

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

This letter is going to get very technical and scientific. I don’t expect you two to understand this all fully. So please, feel free to stop frequently during this letter to look things up on the computer, or you can have Sing or Aunt Nadia in the room. I’m sure they might be able to help explain some of the concepts to you. Actually, I probably should have told Aunt Nadia to get Cain for this one. He’s really smart and would probably be able to explain these concepts for you!

Anyway, where to begin? I’m going to tell you just exactly who Dino Golzine was, what Banana Fish was, and how the two were connected. Get ready, because this letter might be a bit long!

Let’s begin by telling you about the notorious and nefarious Dino Golzine…

He was bald, about 5’10”, had a blonde-ish colored mustache, and had greenish (I guess?) eyes. He always wore a nice black suit and a white button up shirt with an ascot neatly tucked in. He liked to present himself as a really nice and decent looking businessman.  
However, he was far from that. He was quite devious and cunning; sharp, too. He could tell an enemy from miles and miles away. He always made sure to surround himself with bodyguards and made everyone call him Papa Dino. For what reason? Beats the hell outta me! I just always thought that was a really creepy request of everyone. I sure as hell never called him Papa Dino! And actually neither did Ash! And he owned Ash!  
The most disgusting aspect of Dino was his “taste” in men, or actually I should say little boys. He was a certified classic case of a pedophile. He loved boys more than anything and loved to keep them. In fact, the ones he really took a liking to, he would keep them as his “pets”.   
I know that he used to own, operate, and visit a certain “restaurant” at the Chinese market. The name of this “restaurant”? Club Cod. The reason for the quoting around the word restaurant? Because Club Cod was definitely not a restaurant. It was, in fact, a child sex trafficking brothel for little boys. The clientele? All important and prominent figures in society including lawyers and politicians alike. Dino promised them complete and total secrecy but he kept photos and footage of each of them with boys, pretty much as a security measure should they ever have decided to deflect from him.  
Dino would visit Club Cod once a month without his guards in tow so as not to draw any attention to himself. This is how he met Ash Lynx, a runaway kid with the perfect features: blonde hair and green eyes the color and shade of jade. Back then, Ash was still only known by his birthname of Aslan Callenreese. And Dino immediately took an unhealthy obsession for Ash. He decided to keep Ash as his pet and groomed him to be his successor.   
But, you know, as I said in a previous letter, he wanted to be the only one for Ash. He would not accept Ash loving anyone nor would he accept anyone besides himself loving Ash. And he made that as clear as crystal when he had that young teen girl killed when Ash was only 14 years old.   
Dino was also power hungry, probably actually more like obsessed with power. Whenever he made an enemy (and trust me he made A LOT) he would strike them down hard and fast, and without any warning. Of course he made sure that it was an assassination so that he and his men could never be linked to the crime.

And I guess now is a great time to introduce to you his proudest achievement: Banana Fish…

Banana Fish, as was told to you by both Aunt Nadia and Sing, is a drug. But even they don’t know the half of it.

When breaking it down chemically, it was extremely similar to the common hallucinogen, LSD. It had psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide. However, there was one major difference. The addition of a mysterious inert alkaloid. Ash always suspected that a plant of some kind had to be involved with the production of Banana Fish, mainly due to the inert alkaloid part. (Apparently, that’s just big scientific talk for a plant?)  
(Yut-Lung of the Lee Clan would later overhear that Banana Fish was accidentally created by a spontaneous mutation of a plant called Brugmansia, which is an alkaloid hallucinatory plant.)  
With the addition of the inert alkaloid, several horrifying effects come about:  
-Sporadic behavior  
-Savage behavior  
-Overly aggressive tendencies  
-Extremely destructive behavior toward others  
-Extremely destructive behavior towards oneself  
-Dilation of the pupils  
What’s more, while the effects of typical LSD last around 8 hours at most, the effects of Banana Fish were found to last for 24 or more hours! It was truly a horrifying drug. It could make people do some pretty horrifying things, like murdering someone and even committing suicide. 

Now let’s talk more about how Banana Fish was created…

Banana Fish was accidentally created by two medical students around the time of the Vietnam War. These two medical students just so happened to be brothers: Abraham and Alexis Dawson. The two were trying to make drugs in their home in L.A. to make some quick cash while they attended medical school, and they ended up accidentally creating an entirely new drug. A spontaneous mutation of the alkaloid hallucinatory plant known as Brugmansia created this super drug which has caused all our damn problems. A regular sampling of the plant can cause effects such as auditory hallucinations, acute dementia (severe memory loss disease), and erratic behavior.   
The Dawson brothers quickly figured out the devastation the drug they accidentally created could cause; they soon discovered that the alkaloid part of the drug could cause permanent damage to the brain’s neural pathways. (When the brain, especially the neural pathways, is damaged it can cause a person to lose all sense of functionality, thus causing them to become a living vegetable.) Alexis, the older brother, was terrified of the drug and wanted to destroy both the drug and all research the brothers had compiled about it. However, Abraham, the younger brother, wanted to continue research and development on the drug believing it could be used for military purposes. This obviously caused a great rift between the Dawson brothers, with Alexis basically running away and destroying as many samples as he could and Abraham running to join the military with as many samples as he could save.

And now on to the Vietnam War…

I have no clue who Abraham Dawson met with or talked to but somehow he was able to produce and test Banana Fish on so many subjects. And who were the test subjects? American soldiers in the Vietnam War. It was a horrible thing to not only send these soldiers, most of them being just kids really, to Vietnam to fight a war we should never have been involved with, but to also become test subjects for Banana Fish. 

Sometime before 1973, Abraham Dawson and Ash’s brother, Griff, had been in the same unit. I’m not sure how they got along or anything but your father told me they had found a unit photo with both Griff and Abraham in it, so my guess is that they got along okay. Then for some reason either the unit got broken up or one of them got transferred out. Because by June 1973 Griff was in a unit with a man known as Max Lobo.  
The war had, according to Max, taken its toll on Griff. Their unit was the cleanup crew basically; they went from village to village cleaning up the bodies. I can only imagine how awful it must have been for Griff, seeing dead bodies of kids. I’m sure it reminded him of his little brother back home. So Max said Griff turned to drugs to dull himself or numb himself to it all.  
One night, however, he went to go relieve himself and when he came back he just started shooting his whole unit up. Max and the commanding officer were able to hide and shield themselves. The other members were not so lucky; Griff ended up killing them all. Max had to shoot Griff in the legs. When he got over to Griff, he said he started shouting if he knew it was Max in front of him. But Griff seemed catatonic and unresponsive except for muttering one little phrase, “Banana Fish”.  
Of course, Max didn’t understand what his friend was muttering nor could he understand what had just happened. So after coming home, Max Lobo became a journalist and began searching for the truth behind what Banana Fish meant.

So how did Dino get involved with something like Banana Fish? I’m guessing sometime after the war was over and he had come back home, Abraham got kicked out of the Dawson household in L.A. His older brother, Alexis, was already living there and didn’t want Banana Fish being brought in. So my only guess is that Abraham holed up somewhere or traveled a lot. Honestly, I really have no clue.  
But by the time 1985 had come around, he was in league with Dino. He saw the potential that Banana Fish held. He wanted to use it for assassinations and to control the people that he hated. His enemies.   
He gave Abraham a place to live. A laboratory for producing more and more of Banana Fish. And he gave him money for his research. Now Abraham had everything he needed. And so did Dino Golzine.  
You see, Dino was planning on researching Banana Fish and making sure it worked the way he wanted it to. After he was able to confirm how it worked, he was going to take it to the White House and the military leaders to see if they would be interested in using it. And who wouldn’t have wanted to use it? That’s probably what he thought.

I bet you’re thinking by now, ‘Uh mom, if Abraham Dawson was using Banana Fish during his time in the military, wouldn’t the military leaders have already known about it?’ My answer: He and the military leaders may have already been in league with Dino then. But then who knows? That’s just my speculation. All anyone knows is that hundreds of soldiers during the ‘Nam War suddenly went crazy, shot up their entire units, and then committed suicide. And that after the war ended, any rumors of Banana Fish and any mention of these soldiers stopped. For over 10 years. Until 1985.   
No one knows why everything came to such a crashing halt after the War. Maybe they ran out of test subjects. Maybe Abraham couldn’t find a place to go. Maybe the military wanted to keep everyone and everything quiet following the war. Anyone’s guess is as good as mine.

All we know is that Banana Fish is not person, like we all originally thought. Banana Fish is not the name of a drug trade route, like we all thought. Banana Fish was the name of the most dangerous drug in the entire world, hell maybe the whole universe. And Banana Fish caused your father’s death, caused Skip’s death, caused Ash’s death, and caused mine as well.

My next letter will begin our story about Ash standing up to Papa Dino using Banana Fish as his weapon.

Love,  
Your Mom

Letter Four Epilogue

“Okay, okay! I got it! I got it!” Jin-Kyong shouted angrily as she furiously typed on the computer sitting on the desk. She and her brother were in the middle of reading their mother’s fourth letter, and couldn’t even get past the first few parts without scratching their heads. They had been determined not to use anyone else for help, so they took their mom’s advice and decided to use the computer in their room instead.

“Okay, so tell me what psilocybin means then”, Yong-You said, in a rather annoyed tone. He had been waiting what he thought to be way too long for his sister to look up chemical names. (It had only been about one or two minutes.)

Jin-Kyong sighed, fixed her long black ponytail, and replied, “According to dictionary.com, it’s a hallucinogenic crystalline solid obtained from the mushroom called Psilocybe Mexicana, which means-“

“Wait, what does that even mean?!” Yong-You screamed, now really annoyed. He angrily tapped his hand on the bed.

Jin-Kyong sighed the most annoyed sigh she could manage before shouting back, “SHUT UP AND WAIT FOR ME TO FINISH, JACKASS! I WAS ABOUT TO SAY THAT JUST MEANS IT’S A FREAKING MUSHROOM ELEMENT! IT’S A GODDAMN SHROOM!”

“Okay, what’s going on up here?!” Nadia Wong had been listening to a ruckus of shouting coming from the twins’ bedroom and had run upstairs to see what the hell was going on. She had walked in on her niece and nephew having the fight of all fights and was now pretty annoyed herself.

“Ugh, Aunt Nadia, mom’s letter this time is really complicated. It’s full of stuff we don’t know”, Yong-You said in an exasperated tone. He brushed a hand through his mohawk and sighed.

“Do you want me to go get Cain? He’s a lawyer and he might know how to translate this stuff for you”, Nadia said. She was trying to be both helpful and to get her niece and nephew to shut up, all at the same time.

The twins leaned back in their respective “chairs” and sighed heavily. They both quickly looked at each other then looked back at their Aunt Nadia. They seemed to be having a silent or telepathic conversation with one another.

“Well? What do you want? Cause if you don’t want Cain’s help then keep quiet up here! All our customers can hear you screaming from the restaurant!”

“Oh, we’re really sorry, Aunt Nadia. We didn’t realize how loud we were being up here”, the twins sheepishly replied to their aunt.

“And yes, please have someone get Cain for us. We’re starting to get really confused”, Jin-Kyong added with Yong-You nodding in agreement.

“Alright, I’ll have someone go get him. He should be off from work by now. Until he arrives, please try to keep quiet in here”, Nadia said as she closed the door and walked back downstairs.

The twins sighed and leaned back. This letter was certainly turning into a doozy for them.

“I hope Cain will agree to help us”, Jin-Kyong said, as she got up from the chair at the desk. She walked over to the bed and collapsed on it, putting a hand to her face. She couldn’t help but feel both exhausted and overwhelmed by the letter they were attempting to understand.

“Yea, this letter is so complicated. And why was mom already talking about her death here? Did she already know she was going to die when she was writing these letters to us?” Yong-You thought out loud.

Jin-Kyong sat up, looked over at her brother sitting next to her, and said, “Well, she probably knew she wasn’t going to make it. After all, if she thought she was going to live then there wouldn’t have been any point in her writing to us, huh?”

Yong-You smacked himself on the forehead and said, “Yea, sis, I guess you’re right.”

“Anyway, let’s take a break from this letter until Cain gets here. I’m actually kind of excited to meet him. I don’t think we’ve met him before, have we?” Jin-Kyong said, getting a bit excited. She and her brother had heard a lot about Cain and how he’d helped out Ash. So she was really pretty excited to meet him.

“Nah, we haven’t met him yet. Anything we know is what Aunt Nadia and Sing told us”, Yong-You replied to his sister.

Yong-You put the letter down on the nightstand table next to the bed and picked up a small family portrait. It portrayed him, his sister, and his parents. The twins’ father, Shorter Wong, was wearing a yellow hoodie, gray jean vest, and his signature sunglasses. He had still had his purple mohawk then and was smiling proudly while holding Yong-You. The twins’ mother, Ember Park, was wearing her signature style Korean punk street clothes and was happily holding Jin-Kyong.

Yong-You sighed pretty heavily and with sadness as he looked at the portrait photo. ‘I really wish mom and dad had lived. It would have been so nice to have them around’, he thought to himself.

Jin-Kyong was also looking at the family portrait her brother was holding. ‘I miss them so much. It really makes me despise Dino and Banana Fish’, she thought to herself angrily.

Right there, the twins decided to resolve themselves to a pact, a lifelong pact. They would ensure that the alliance between Koreatown and Chinatown would be long and prosperous, and that they would also get Little Tokyo to join the alliance.

“Say, sis, what do you think things would be like if mom and dad were still around?” Yong-You asked.

“Hmm…I’m not entirely sure. But perhaps maybe things wouldn’t feel so awkward?” Jin-Kyong responded.

She honestly had no idea how to respond to her brother, because she, too, often asked herself that very question. Her conclusion, though, was always the same: Things would just be…different. She could never conclude how things would be different, she just knew they would be.

Just as Jin-Kyong was slowly becoming lost in her own thoughts, a gentle knock came from the other side of the closed bedroom door, followed by Sing’s voice: “Hey, it’s Sing. I have Cain with me.”

Yong-You quickly sprang off the bed and opened the door. Sing was standing just outside the door with a tall, muscular African American man wearing a suit and tie. His black hair was shaved on all sides and had been styled to stand straight up. He was also wearing sunglasses, which made the twins think about their father.

“Um, hi. My name is Cain”, he introduced himself.

Sensing the awkward tension in the room, Sing spoke, “Hey! You two! Introduce yourselves already! He came here cause we told him you guys needed his help with the letter!”

“Oh, um um um, my name is Jin-Kyong. It’s um very nice to meet you, Cain!” Jin-Kyong introduced herself. She really wanted to kick herself right there because she had stammered so much. But she really just couldn’t help it. Cain was a really good-looking man.

“Oh yes! My name is Yong-You!” Yong-You introduced himself, bowing his head slightly.

“Okay, so will you guys be alright and quiet if I leave Cain here with you? There’s some business I need to attend to outside, if you know what I mean”, Sing said.

The twins and Cain nodded, so Sing left the bedroom. He closed the door behind him and walked down the stairs.

As soon as the door closed, Yong-You picked up the letter from the nightstand table and handed it to Cain. Cain quickly looked the letter over and sighed. He understood exactly why the twins needed him here.

“Okay, I’ll read the letter and look up the terms that might be hard to understand. I can translate the definitions so you can better understand them. Geez, your mother wasn’t being stingy in this letter at all”, he sighed, as he went to the computer chair and sat down. 

********

A few hours later, the twins and Cain came downstairs for dinner. The three had been in the bedroom all afternoon reading and decoding the letter. The whole experience had really tired them all out. And they were also starving to boot.

Nadia noticed the three slowly trudging into the restaurant and the exhaustion they seemed to be carrying with them. She quickly pulled out three chairs for them to sit down and filled their plates with food. Then she herself sat down and served herself.

After letting everyone eat for a few minutes, she ventured to ask a question: “So how did reading the letter go with Cain?”

Yong-You looked up from his dinner and quickly swallowed the food in his mouth before answering, “It went a lot better. Cain was able to look up a lot of the terms that confused us, and explained them so we were able to understand.”

“It was all my pleasure. Your parents treated me well, especially your mother. I owed it to them”, Cain said.

“Oh, really? You met our parents? Can you please tell us what they were like?!” Jin-Kyong asked excitedly. She was always eager to hear anything about her parents. With every story, she felt that she was getting to know them better and better. She just wanted to keep getting to know her parents, no matter what.

“Yes, I met your parents. Well, I interacted a lot more with your mother as your father was always pretty busy here in Chinatown. So I can’t say much about your father. Your mother, though. She was a really nice and down to earth type of person. You could just tell she always wanted everything to be okay and she really worked for that”, Cain said.

Jin-Kyong nodded, taking in every single word. She hadn’t heard much about her mother’s more gentle side. It was a side of her mother that not many people, aside from her father, had known. Even her Aunt Nadia didn’t have much to say about it.

As if to interrupt his sister’s thoughts, Yong-You said, “Mom must’ve been really cool and she knew so much about Banana Fish! And she never traveled with our dad and Ash! I wonder how she could’ve learned so much?”

“Oh, well that’s easy. Koreans own a lot of military and police grade radios, as well as CB radio systems. She had your father take a CB radio with him so they could communicate without being tracked”, Cain explained.

“Oh, that does explain a lot”, Yong-You said.

“Yea, I guess it does. But I just hope the next letter won’t be so technical. I don’t think I could take that again”, Jin-Kyong said.

“Well, I think she pretty much saved all the hard to explain stuff for first so that she wouldn’t have to do it later or make the other letters too confusing”, Nadia interjected.

“Yea, seems that way to me. The rest of the letters should be pretty easy to understand”, Cain agreed.

He looked over at the twins who were nodding and smiling in agreement. They were eager for the next month to come so they could really start learning about Banana Fish. 

‘Let’s get to the good parts, and find out why this all had to involve our parents!’ they both thought at the same time.


	5. Letter Five - Strange Suicides and the Reporter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE!!! SPOILERS ARE IN THIS LETTER AND WILL BE IN ALL LETTERS GOING FORWARD AS WELL!!!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE!!! SUICIDE IS HEAVILY MENTIONED AND SOMEWHAT GRAPHICALLY DEPICTED IN THIS LETTER!!! PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK AND TRIGGER WARNINGS!!!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE!!! THE WORD JAP IS USED IN THIS LETTER!! AGAIN, I AM USING THE CONTEXT OF THE MANGA, WHICH TAKES PLACE IN THE MID TO LATE 1980S, WHEN WORDS LIKE JAP WERE COMMONLY USED!!! THE WORD IS NOT BEING USED IN A WAY TO ACTIVELY OR PURPOSEFULLY OFFEND ANYONE AT ALL!!!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE!!! THIS LETTER ALSO CONTAINS SWEARING!!

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

Ash’s involvement with Banana Fish began on March 6th, 1985.

There had been a strange rash of suicides happening all over The Bronx. They were being investigated by two officers that knew Ash well. The names of the two officers were Charlie Dickinson and Antonio Jenkins. (For the record, I have really no clue how Ash found these two officers, but he was working with them on the side, to get Dino put away and get away from him forever.)

Both Charlie and Jenkins were quickly becoming suspicious regarding the rash of suicides. The victims had all been suspected of mob ties and dirty dealings. And both coincidentally and suspiciously enough, they were all also enemies of Dino Golzine.

Furthermore, all the suicides had been extremely gruesome and disturbing:

The first suicide was Richard Bach, a man who had been heavily suspected of mob ties. On January 5th, 1985, he shot himself in the head.

The second suicide was only known by his nickname, The Importer. He had been suspected of smuggling. During a family dinner, he jumped straight out his apartment window and crash landed on the streets below.

Finally, the third suicide was Jerry Watts. He had been accused and acquitted of fraud on three separate occasions. On March 4th, 1985 he snuck up on his bodyguard, slit the bodyguard’s throat then did the same to himself.

On the night of March 6th. 1985, both Charlie and Jenkins sat in their office, contemplating over these recent rash of strange and gruesome suicides. While they did this, there were things happening that would change all our lives forever.

The first thing was that Charlie’s friend (Griff Callenreese’s old military buddy) Max Lobo was sitting in jail, and the two foreign Jap reporters he was supposed to be playing chaperone to were still coming. They would be arriving on March 8th and Max would still not be out of jail by then. So Charlie and Jenkins would have to play chaperone to them instead.

The second thing was that Ash was wandering around his turf in the Bronx. While walking near an alley, he stumbled upon a man. He was crawling around in the dark alley and clearly had a bullet wound. He saw Ash and started crawling over to him, asking him for help.

When he got over to Ash, he was able to stumble out his dying words: “42 Westwood, Los Angeles… Go see… Banana Fish”. He handed Ash a vile filled with mysterious white powder and then died immediately after.

He heard a couple of people running and talking to one another, so he quickly hid the vile inside his jacket. When the two people arrived in the alley, Ash realized that it was his guys and that they had been the ones to shoot the guy.

And boy, was Ash pissed off! I mean who wouldn’t be? Two of his guys were doing a job behind his back, behind the boss’s back!

They immediately fessed up to Papa Dino having them do this job. Ash probably would’ve socked them good but the sirens were coming so he told them all to beat it, and he did the same.

The next day, he confronted Dino about his guys doing a kill job. He was pissed off because he and Dino had made a deal that Ash’s guys never did kill jobs, not even one. And Dino had promised they wouldn’t. 

Needless to say, Ash started yelling and Dino tried to coo Ash to calmness. He claimed that it was some extraordinary circumstance and that the guy wasn’t even part of a syndicate or anything. He also reminded Ash that he was his pet, and had done a lot for him. (Complete bullshit to all of us, of course.)

And as expected, Ash never listened to Dino and what that old fart had to say. If he did, well, things would be a lot different than they are now, wouldn’t they? Anyway, enough of the goofing off here.

After Ash left, he met up with your dad. Your dad always knew when Ash was at Dino’s, and would ride his motorcycle over and wait for Ash. As I’ve said before, your dad and Ash were best friends. God, I loved when they would come home together laughing and smiling. It was truly something I could never forget.

Oh, crap! I got off topic again! Anyways, they joked around and then Ash took Shorter’s bike home. To Skip. God, I wish you could’ve met Skip. He was the cutest darned kid ever. He was a little black boy that had really taken a liking to Ash, and Ash to him. He would come over during the days and nights when Ash was gone a long time, and take care of Griff for him. He would also watch the apartment. When Ash would come home, Skip would trade off the keys and go home to his hood. From the way they interacted with one another, you’d think Ash and Skip were real blood brothers.

Anywho, after Ash got home and Skip left, Ash went to the back bedroom of the apartment, to where he kept Griff. Griff was always sitting in a chair in the back bedroom, with a blank stare and slightly slumped over. He was always like that. And he never could hold an intelligent conversation. 

Ash just sat on the floor and put his head in Griff’s lap and told his brother about the man who had handed him white powder and said the same thing Griff had been saying for years: Banana Fish.

He asked Griff who did all this to him. Who had made him become a catatonic human veggie? But he knew Griff would never answer him. He couldn’t.

A few hours later, he lined up the two people in his crew who had shot the guy. He lined them up along a wall in an abandoned part of The Bronx, in front of the other members of his crew. He lined these two assholes up and shot at them, deliberately just missing them. That’s pretty much how he kicked them out of his crew. Permanently.

That was Ash’s way of showing his crew the consequences of betraying and backstabbing him, and taking on a job they knew they shouldn’t have. But this didn’t scare one particular guy in the crew: Arthur. Arthur had had it out for Ash for a long time, ever since he lost to Ash in a fair fight. I guess it had really hurt Arthur’s pride, losing to Ash. And Ash knew it, so he always kept a close eye on Arthur, no matter what.

He knew even then that Arthur was planning something, but, man, he never could have imagined what it was, not even in a million years…

Anywhom, after kicking those two traitors from his crew Ash went to Chinatown to see one Dr. Meredith. Dr. Meredith was “practicing” abortion in Chinatown because his license had been revoked some years ago. So he basically did things under the table at his “clinic” but he was actually really damn good at it and I don’t think he ever botched a patient, not even once. 

Ash went to Dr. Meredith’s cause he would be the only guy he could trust. He needed someone he could truly trust. And why? Because he needed Dr. Meredith to analyze the mysterious white powder he had received from the dying man the other night. He needed to figure out just what it was and why it had been so important for the guy not to live while he had it/knew about it.

After some persuasion, Dr. Meredith agreed to look into it. And, well, the things he figured out and observed turned out to be the craziest shit ever…

Ah but that’s a time for another letter. I think I’ll end things here for now. I’ve ranted quite a bit in this one, and it’s probably starting to get really confusing. I’m sorry about that, it’s just that I never thought in a billion years I would be writing letters to my children explaining my death haha. My, how the tables do turn when you’re part of a crime family.

Well, at any rate, I’ll have to tell you about what Arthur had planned out for Ash in the next letter. It isn’t going to be much of a fun letter, to put it. In fact, the letters are probably only going to get more depressing from here on out. Please be ready for that.

Love,  
Your Mother

Letter Five Epilogue

Jin-Kyong looked up at her brother from the floor. She was sitting on the floor leaning her back on the side of the bed. She had thought this would be a good time to let her brother read the letter instead of her. But now she was really starting to regret that decision.

“Um? Yong? Are you alright?” she asked, still looking up.

When her brother didn’t answer, she stood up and saw that Yong-You was lying on the bed. The letter from their mother was laying on the bed next to his head, and he had one of his hands over his face. He seemed to be either deep in thought or deeply upset.

“Hey, Yong, are you alright? What’s wrong?” she asked again, this time removing his hand from his head.

Yong-You’s eyes were closed as he answered, “Yes, I’m fine, sis. Just thinking.”

“Thinking? About what?”

“I just, I’m having a hard time believing that Ash could’ve gotten himself tangled up in all this shit, just like that. I mean was running into that guy really just a coincidence, or…?” he trailed off, as he could feel his sister staring at him.

“Well, yea, it looks like it was. I think mom would’ve said something if she had thought different”, Jin-Kyong replied to her brother.

“Well, I don’t think it’s just a coincidence! I mean let’s look at the facts mom gave us already! There were already three people Dino didn’t like, dead by March 4th! Now there’s a fourth one just two days later, on the 6th! And the fourth dies in Ash’s arms? That is not a coincidence!” Yong-You declared.

“Shhh! Keep it down! There’s customers in the restaurant downstairs! Do you want Aunt Nadia cutting our heads off again!?” Jin-Kyong snapped back.

She sat down on the bed and sighed, as she looked on at her brother calming his ass down. Yong-You had always kind of been into conspiracy theories, ever since he was a little kid. So usually him saying stuff like this didn’t bother her much. However, today was a bit different. After all, he was going on another tangent of theories about Ash Lynx of all people.

“Geez, you and your conspiracy theories. Can’t you just leave them with your friends for once?” she asked, sighing again.

“Well, geez. I just thought I’d share my thoughts with you”, Yong-You replied, sounding a bit annoyed. It really annoyed him when his sister simply just dismissed his theories.

“Well, I would take your thoughts more seriously if they actually made any sense and weren’t just conspiracy theories all the time”, Jin-Kyong replied, now sounding seriously annoyed.

Yong-You sat up on the bed so quickly at that remark, that his mohawk bounced slightly. When he turned and looked at his sister, his face had become a serious shade of blood red.

“Take that fucking shit back! I’m not some crazy fucking loon! I know what I’m talking about!” he shouted angrily, “Ash got mom and dad mixed up with him in this bad fucking mess and now they’re all dead!”

“Okay, okay, shut up and calm down. If Aunt Nadia or Sing come up here, then we’re dead meat”, Jin-Kyong said, turning to her brother before she got up off the bed and sat down in the desk chair.

She took a deep breath before speaking her own thoughts, “If you ask me, I’d say it is pretty crazy that Griff was basically tortured by Banana Fish all those years, and Ash just happened upon a dying man with information about it. I mean, yea, that’s crazy but sometimes coincidences are crazy like that. Doesn’t mean it was or wasn’t planned.”

“So, you agree that at the very least, it was strange?” Yong-You asked. Jin-Kyong just nodded to signal her agreement.

“The real problem is finding out about what Arthur has planned for Ash. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he went to Dino and his men for help on that one”, Jin-Kyong thought out loud.

“Damn it! I wish mom would’ve just told us more in this letter!” Yong-You shouted slightly in frustration.

He picked up the last page of the letter and held it up toward the ceiling before saying, “This is so frustrating, having to wait another month before-“

“Hey, wait! Yong! Look! There’s more writing on the back of the page!” Jin-Kyong said excitedly.

She had been looking at the page and noticed what looked like scribbles or more handwriting on the back of it.

Yong-You quickly turned the paper over in his hand and gasped before managing to say, “There is more writing! Mom wrote: “P.S. I have one more thing to tell you in this letter. Ash Lynx was your godfather.”

“Holy shit!” the twins cried in unison, as Yong-You let the page fall out of his hand and land on his chest. This was definitely not something they had been expecting. For Ash Lynx to have been their godfather. Now that was quite the surprise.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

“Hey, it’s me!” Sing called out from the other side of the closed door.

“Oh! Come in, Sing!” the twins both answered, again in unison. They were so in shock from the P.S. of the letter that they were sort of stuck answering in unison.

Sing opened the door, walked in, and shut the door quietly behind him. He leaned against the wall next to the door and sighed a bit heavily.

“Your aunt called and asked me to come over and check in on you. She said she could hear yelling all the way down to the restaurant. What’s up this time?” he asked, as he looked at the twins.

Seeing their surprised and shocked faces, he looked over at Yong-You and put his hand out. He was gesturing for the letter pages to be given to him. Yong-You nodded, got up, and handed all the pages to Sing who proceeded to read, perhaps actually skim, through them. When he got to the last page, he also noted that there was more writing on the back. After flipping the page over and reading the P.S., he laughed a bit to himself.

“Wait, why are you laughing? What’s so funny about Ash Lynx being our godfather?” Jin-Kyong asked, getting annoyed again. She didn’t think this was very funny, finding out that their backup legal guardian had also been disposed of.

“Well, I knew that they were planning to make Ash your godfather but I didn’t think they would actually go and do it legally, that’s all. I’m just surprised they went through the whole thing”, Sing said, attempting to wave the twins off as he could sense their annoyance growing.

“Okay, I still don’t see how that might be funny but whatever. I just have a question, Sing, if you don’t mind?” Yong-You asked.

“No, I don’t mind. Go ahead”, Sing said, as he returned the letter to Yong-You and went back to leaning against the wall.

“Could you, I mean I’m just shooting in the dark here, but could you please tell us what Arthur had planned for Ash?” Yong-You asked, as he fiddled with his purple mohawk.

“Well, unfortunately, if your mom hasn’t put it in a letter that you’ve already gotten then I really can’t. When your mom was writing these letters for you two, she swore your Aunt and I to secrecy”, Sing replied, as he nervously swiped his hand through his hair.

“So you do know what Arthur planned for Ash then?” Jin-Kyong asked, getting up from the desk chair and approaching Sing.

“Um, well I guess you could say that. But, really, anything I know is just secondhand knowledge”, Sing said, feeling even more nervous. Perhaps he had made a mistake in coming over to check on the twins for Nadia.

Sensing Sing’s nervousness, Jin-Kyong decided to press him a bit further, “So, you weren’t actually there then?”

Sing shook his head, signaling that he wasn’t.

“As your dad’s second in command, I got left behind in Chinatown a lot because someone had to be there to run things when he couldn’t”, Sing explained.

“Oh, damn it. That makes sense though”, Jin-Kyong said, finally backing down.

“Yea, I guess we can just wait until next month to find out what Arthur was planning”, Yong-You agreed, feeling sad and excited at the same time.

Jin-Kyong sighed and sat down on the bed next to her brother.

“Okay, well if things have settled down here, then I guess I’ll get going. See you guys later!” Sing said, waving as he left.

The twins waited for him to be out of earshot before sighing and saying, “This is going to be a long month.”


	6. Letter 6 - Arthur's Plan, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE: THE WORD JAP IS USED IN THIS CHAPTER. AGAIN, I AM USING THE MANGA FOR REFERENCE WHICH HAS THE STORY TAKING PLACE DURING THE 1980S WHEN THE WORD JAP WAS COMMONLY USED. IT IS NOT BEING USED IN A WAY TO PURPOSEFULLY OR ACTIVELY MAKE FUN OF OR OFFEND ANYONE. (I AM ASIAN 100% SO)
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS SWEARING IN THIS CHAPTER
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS CHAPTER (AND THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN ALL FUTURE CHAPTERS AS WELL)

To my dear children Yong-You and Jin-Kyong,

Ah, where to begin with this one. Perhaps it is best to explain who Arthur was and why he had such a grudge against Ash.

This all began a long ass time ago. Arthur decided to fight Ash “fair and square” because he wanted control over Ash’s territory and to become the leader of the gang. I guess he didn’t like Ash for some reason, but I don’t think anyone really knows the true reason he hated Ash. He just never liked him and never wanted to like him.   
They were fighting with knives, and of course, there were a couple of guys there to observe the fight. Just to make sure neither Ash nor Arthur tried to cheat or anything. Ash dodged every single throw and jab Arthur brought on. He finally managed to trip Arthur up and pointed his knife at his face, signaling that Arthur had lost the fight.  
Ash told Arthur that the territory was his and that he could either be part of the gang or leave, and that he had until the next day to decide. He started walking away, leaving Arthur knelt over on the ground. One of Arthur’s friends that was there to observe the fight apparently ran over to him to see if he was okay, and that was when it happened.  
Arthur saw the gun in the guy’s front waistband of his jeans. He took the gun and attempted to shoot and kill Ash with it. Ash just barely managed to dodge that shot. In what Ash described as one quick movement, he ran over to Arthur, flipped him onto the ground, held his good hand, and sliced his fingers up. He called him a coward and left him there. Due to the damage done to his nerves from the knife, Arthur was never able to wield a gun after that. Instead, he had to switch to using knives as his weapon.

It was after that fight that Arthur really began hating, even despising, Ash. After that fight, Arthur was willing to do just about anything to take Ash down. No matter what it meant.

And I guess now that you know all that we can get to what “fun” Arthur had planned out for Ash that day…

I now take you, my dear children, to the day of March 8th, 1985…

The two foreign Jap reporters had arrived in The Bronx and Officer Dickinson had come to meet them because, as said before, Lobo was in jail and unable to babysit them.   
After dropping them off at the police station, Dickinson went to the Otis Bantum Correctional Center on Rikers Island to visit Lobo who had been investigating “Banana Fish” ever since he had come home from the Nam War. Because, for Max Lobo, this “banana fish” had taken the life of his best friend, Griff Callenreese. So, he wanted to find out who or what it was. No matter what it took.  
From what Dickinson was able to tell me later on, Lobo apparently had a lead on some guy who might know a thing or two about “banana fish” but, unfortunately, he had to tell Lobo some bad news. The guy he was banking a lot of his hopes on had been shot and killed. However, unknown to both of them, was the fact that guy had been the one who had died in Ash’s arms. 

That information I just told you guys is really, really important. That is part of the reason for Arthur’s plan. It is also extremely relevant to everything else surrounding banana fish.

Anyway, back at the police station, the two foreign Jap reporters were being introduced to Officer Jenkins. You see, they were there for a couple of very important reasons:  
The first was that they were writing an article on youth in gangs in America; the second was that any information they might be able to get could prove to be useful for the police in The Bronx.

The young one, Eiji, later told me that Officer Jenkins gave the both of them a pretty nice rundown about Ash and his gang achievements. He was preparing them to go into the lion’s den (or lynx’s den in Ash’s case).  
Eiji would later tell me that he was really impressed with the way Officer Jenkins described Ash. Hell of a smart kid. Tough as nails and with a good presence. And most important of all, able to unite several different ethnic groups with relative ease. And that, at the time, Ash was only 17!

Your father would later tell me that he overheard some of Arthur’s guys talking about the plan Arthur and Marvin had concocted. Marvin was a guy who worked for Dino and had always had a thing for Ash. Ash would often make fun of him whenever he went to Dino’s mansion which would always piss Marvin off.

What your father overheard was something like the guys said that Arthur knew Marvin had it out for Ash cause he was always making fun of him. So, Arthur was willing to cut Marvin a deal. He would help Marvin catch Ash so that they could get info out of him about the guy who had died in his arms and then Marvin could do whatever he wanted with him. But the part about Marvin doing whatever he wanted with Ash would never get back to Dino, it would be their little secret.  
As soon as your father heard about that, he went running to Ash’s hangout spot. A bar in The Bronx called Pink Pig. They didn’t really care about anyone’s age in there and a lot of teens and young kids hung out there often. Especially Ash and his gang.

The unfortunate part, Eiji and Ash would later tell me, is that Eiji and the guy he was playing assistant to, Ibe, were walking right into the thick of it that day. You see, that day they had an interview scheduled with Ash and Skip was taking them to it!

Like damn, I’m still really mad I couldn’t be there, too. But that day I had business to attend to in Koreatown so I was away. I had to leave Chinatown and The Bronx totally up to Ash, your father, and Sing. And I mean, usually that woulda been alright but you know.

Anyway, Ash said to me that that day, when he and Eiji first met, he could tell the kid was as straight as a damned pin. Kinda nicely combed and neat dark hair. Wearing clothes that didn’t look like they’d seen the street life. Even a face that didn’t look like it had seen the street life. He said Ibe’s look was about the same, only just an older guy. I woulda died laughing at that sight, I tell you!  
Ash said they both looked nervous to all hell. He even said Eiji looked a bit fidgety so he had Skip keep him company while he talked with Ibe. But when Eiji saw Ash’s gun, he apparently couldn’t keep the excitement and nerves down anymore. (You see, in Japan guns are outlawed, only the police and military can have them.) Ash said that he had no idea why, but he felt he could trust Eiji so he let him hold his gun for a bit. Everyone was shocked to all hell, cause Ash never let anyone hold his gun, not even me or your dad. Ash sorta laughed at Eiji’s reaction to the gun and called him a kid.  
That sorta made everyone feel a lot more at ease with the entire situation. Everyone in the bar basically relaxed a bit more, even Ash and Eiji. Ibe even was making plans to return to the bar tomorrow to talk with Ash more. He coulda cemented those plans but…

That’s when your father burst in and ran straight over to Ash. He told me he told Ash he had to get the hell outta dodge and right away, that it was real bad, and that he didn’t have time to explain; he just needed Ash and Skip to leave immediately.  
But it was too late. Arthur’s guys stormed the place as soon as your father spit out the warning. They came in tearing the place up, with Eiji and Ibe in there! Dickinson and another officer with him must have heard all the commotion cause they apparently came running, meanwhile Ash was jumping and running all over the bar, kicking Arthur’s guys around.

When Dickinson burst in shouting for everyone to freeze, he was able to see that Ibe was safe under a table. And that Eiji was safe; Skip had grabbed him and safely tucked him behind the bar with himself. But Eiji popping up was exactly what Arthur’s guys needed and they came running that way. Eiji later told me that Skip fought pretty damn bravely, smashing one guy on the head with a liquor bottle.  
Afterwards, Skip grabbed Eiji and pulled him toward an emergency, secret exit. Arthur’s guys were about to go after him but one pulled back and said they didn’t have to. That’s when Ash realized what was about to go down. He told me he desperately called out to Skip, to tell him to come back, but by then it was too late. Skip and Eiji had already taken the secret exit.

Eiji told me that next thing he knew, he and Skip were popping out of a sewer grate just to see two of Arthur’s favorite guys waiting there for em. Ash said he told your father he was going after Skip, and bailed outta the bar. He ran out just in time to see Skip and Eiji being forced into a car. He said he carefully aimed his gun at the back window and shot, probably taking one of Arthur’s guys out.

Your father said he then ran out of the bar just to see Ash getting on his bike and telling him he was borrowing it. Your father immediately told Ash it was a trap, and that Arthur meant to kill him. But none of that mattered to Ash. He just wanted to save Skip. So, he left, following after the car. And your father went to Ash’s guys, to rally them up and go save Ash and Skip.

I think I’ll end things here for now. Otherwise, the letter will be too long. But at least now you’re starting to realize just how serious things were.

Love,  
Your Mother

Letter Six Epilogue

Yong-You threw the letter down onto the floor and sighed, heavily and deeply with anger. Reading that letter had gotten him fuming. When he looked over at his sister, who had been sitting next to him on the bed, he sighed even heavier. Jin-Kyong had a look of pure anger and hatred literally and practically painted onto her face. ‘That letter must have her fuming, too’, he thought to himself, relieved he wasn’t the only angry one.

“Damn him! Damn that bastard Arthur!” Jin-Kyong shouted, albeit quietly as she could.

“Yea, I definitely feel that, sis. That damn bastard. What a dirty trick to do Ash in like that”, Yong-You almost growled in agreement, albeit quietly as he could as well.

After the last few letters, he and his twin sister were trying to keep their explosive reactions controlled and to a minimum. They had been upsetting their aunt and the customers down in the restaurant lately. In fact, even customers had started complaining about the noise level they were emitting, which had caused their Aunt Nadia to threaten to no longer give them the letters their mother had written to them. Faced with that harsh punishment, the twins had vowed to be quieter in their reactions.

“Oh, I bet the letter next month will have mom telling us Ash kicked Arthur’s and Marvin’s asses real good”, Jin-Kyong said, slightly smiling, as she got up off the bed and began gathering the letter sheets off the floor.

As soon as she had all five pages in hand and in order, she sat down on the floor and neatened them by smacking them quietly on the floor. She reached under the bed and pulled a file holding folder out. She carefully opened the folder, placed the letter inside, and slid it back under the bed. 

She and Yong-You had decided to buy a nice file holding folder to keep the letters in after they read them. They wanted to keep them nice and crisp as long as possible. They wanted them to stay nice looking in case they wanted to reread them, at least that’s what they told everyone. But secretly, they just wanted to hang onto the letters as long as possible so that they could feel close to their parents again.

Yong-You quietly got up off the bed and sat down on the floor next to his sister. He noticed that her usually shoulder-length black hair was done up in a ponytail and that her shoulders seemed a bit more sunken in than usual. It worried him that maybe his sister was taking on too much, what with controlling Koreatown, helping him run Chinatown, and trying to make some sort of deal with Little Tokyo. ‘Maybe she’s taking on too much’, he thought to himself.

Sensing her brother next to her, Jin-Kyong looked over to him. She immediately noticed that his usually fluffed up purple mohawk seemed a bit messier than usual. His face also looked more tired than it usually did. It worried her that maybe he was taking on too much himself, helping her run Koreatown and running Chinatown. ‘Maybe he’s taking on too much himself. I hope he’s getting enough sleep’, she thought to herself, feeling a bit guilty.

“Oh, um, sis, how’s everything going with Little Tokyo? Are you close to making a deal with them?” Yong-You asked. He was trying to break the awkward silence that had begun to form in the room.

“Oh, um, things are going a bit better than expected. I expect to have an alliance with them by the end of the month”, Jin-Kyong replied, feeling a great deal of relief and happiness. Attempting to reach an alliance with Little Tokyo and their Yakuza had been a long, harsh road. She was happy that she was finally making her parents’ wish come true.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

The sound of knocking at the bedroom door startled the twins.

“Oh, hi, who is it?” Yong-You called out.

“It’s me, Alex!” a voice called out.

The twins looked at each other, smiled, and then replied in complete unison, “Come on in, Alex!”

The door opened and a man walked in. He had short brown hair and was wearing a light blue unbuttoned jacket. It revealed that he was wearing a dark shirt underneath. He was also wearing jeans and sneakers. He quietly closed the door behind him and sat down on the floor next to Yong-You and Jin-Kyong.

“Hey, kids, how ya been?” Alex asked, looking at both of them.

“Oh, things are alright. We weren’t expecting a visit from you”, Yong-You replied, looking down nervously at the floor.

When their godfather had been alive, Alex had been his second in command. He was dependable and trusted. He did everything he was told, including even the worst of the worst of things. But since Ash’s death, Alex had become the leader of the gang. He was doing everything in his power to keep the gang going strong in Ash’s stead.

“Ah, well, I was in the area and I just wanted to drop by. I know that your mom had been writing letters for you to read someday. She told everyone about it, in case Sing or Nadia forgot or didn’t want to give them to you”, Alex said.

“Oh, I guess that kinda sounds like something mom would do”, Jin-Kyong replied, a slight smile forming across her face. It made her happy to think that their mother had really wanted them to get those letters. So much so that she was willing to tell others just in case.

“Yea, so, which letter are you on now?” Alex asked, looking over at the twins again.

“Oh, I could just show you”, Jin-Kyong replied, as she retrieved the file folder, opened it, and handed the latest letter to Alex.

As Alex took the letter from Jin-Kyong, he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. The twins (correctly) assumed that this was Alex’s way of preparing himself to read the letter. After opening his eyes, he began to read the latest letter from the twins’ mother.

As he flipped through the pages, the twins noticed his eyes growing wider and wider. However, the two of them were unable to figure out if they were growing wider because he was surprised, or because of something else entirely. 

After a few more minutes, Alex put the letter down on the floor. The look in his eyes made the twins feel very nervous.

“Um, Alex? What’s wrong?” Yong-You asked. He was feeling very nervous.

“It’s just that I know what happens next. And this wasn’t a very pretty situation Arthur put Ash in. It just makes me feel, I don’t know, a certain way whenever I think about it”, Alex sheepishly admitted.

“Was it that messed up? What Arthur did?” Jin-Kyong asked, now feeling genuinely curious. She wasn’t feeling as nervous as her brother.

“It was way more than messed up, what Arthur and Marvin did to Ash, Eiji, and Skip”, Alex said, his expression beginning to get sad.

“Well, um, would you be able to talk about it?” Jin-Kyong tried to press a bit further for more information. ‘This might be the only chance we get at getting more information than what mom put in a letter! He looks like he might spill a bit!’ she thought excitedly to herself.

However, Alex just shook his head and said, “Your mom swore us all to secrecy. If it ain’t in the letter, then I ain’t sayin’ anything. Sorry but I could never go against an order from your mom, not even in death.”

“Oh, well I guess that makes sense. She wants us to learn what happened through her, not someone else”, Yong-You said, looking over at Alex.

“Yea, but why does it have to come only from her? Is she going to try and hide something?” Jin-Kyong said, half thinking out loud.

“Well, I think she wants to do it this way for a couple reasons. She probably has the least biased opinion on things as she wasn’t too directly involved, and the letters serve as a way for her to talk to you guys”, Alex said.

“Oh, well that makes a lot of sense. Maybe I’m just overthinking things”, Jin-Kyong replied, as she chuckled to herself a little.

“Yea, now who’s into conspiracy theories?” Yong-You said jokingly.

“Oh, shut up”, Jin-Kyong laughed, a smile quickly spreading across her face.

As Alex watched the twins laughing and smiling, it made him feel almost nostalgic. He began thinking back to the good old days when Ash headed the gang and Shorter was in charge of Chinatown. Back then, everything had been theirs and everything had practically been laid into the palms of their hands. Thinking about it made him smile, too.

As the three were doing their own reminiscing and started getting lost in it, a phone began buzzing on the bed. Jin-Kyong quickly popped up from the floor and grabbed her phone. She put it to her ear and began speaking, “Yea?... Okay… Okay… I’ll be right there… Yup, I’m coming now… It’ll just be a bit. I’m in Chinatown but I’ll be there pretty fast… Okay, yup, see you!”

She put her phone in her pocket and sighed. She stood up and stretched, then looked down at her brother apologetically.

“Sorry, bro, but something just came up in Koreatown so I gotta go!” she said, as she walked toward the door.

“Oh okay, I should probably get going, too. Sing is probably waiting for me”, Yong-You replied, also getting up.

“Well, I know where Sing’s hanging out today so I can take you over to him”, Alex said, getting up off the floor, too.

As the three made their way down the stairs, the twins exchanged looks. Alex assumed it was just their way of communication with one another over something, most likely the letters.

‘Can’t wait for next month!’ Yong-You thought to his sister, as he looked at her.

‘Me, too! I hope Ash is able to kick those bastards real good!’ Jin-Kyong thought back, looking at her brother in response.

As they neared the bottom of the stairs and opened the door to leave, the twins waved to each other before saying to one another, “See you soon! Love you!”


	7. FANFIC CANCELATION ANNOUCEMENT ='(

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not a chapter, but an announcement on what is happening with the fanfic going forward. Since AO3 doesn't have a way for authors to write chapter and fanfic updates, I'm doing it as a new chapter. I want to make sure everyone who has been reading and following this fanfic sees this update.

Hey guys!

Aydentheweeb here! 

Normally, this would be a new letter / chapter for the Banana Fish fanfic that you've all been so excitedly and happily following and reading!

But it's not a new letter / chapter unfortunately.

Sadly, this fanfic has been on a bit of a hiatus and I am thinking of canceling it completely or starting over from scratch. And I'm here to tell you why:

When I originally started this fanfic, my intention was to tell the story and let it unfold through the eyes of a completely new and original character, Shorter Wong's fiancee. She would tell the story to her and Shorter's kids through a series of letters and they would react to them. 

It started out that way and has been fun, however, as the story has progressed I've come to realize that it may not be best to tell this story in the form of letters. With each letter, things have clearly become more and more complicated, more and more difficult, to put into a letter format. The story that is being told through the anime and original source material, the manga, just cannot be best expressed through a letter format. As I've been coming to that realization, it has become more and more difficult for me to enjoy writing this fanfic as it is now.

I feel that this fanfic deserves better and for that to happen, this form of the fanfic needs to be canceled and that it may need to be revamped or rewritten sometime in the future. Either way, I am just not happy with how it is turning out at this point. The letters are starting to sound more like instruction manuals than actual letters, and I feel that any content I've been attempting to add in sounds random and misplaced at best.

I really am sorry to all the wonderful fans this fanfic has garnered. But for not at least, this will be the end of the Banana Fish fanfic.

I hope to return someday in the future with a better one for you all.

Hugs and Happy "Napping",  
Aydentheweeb


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